Menopause

4. What a woman can try for menopausal symptoms

Karin

"Getting through the menopause...I thought, there doesn't always have to be a treatment. Every day does not have to be great. Then I couldn't decide. Everybody has to find out for themselves, what is best for them."

There is a variety of options to try to help reduce menopausal symptoms. There possible benefits and unwanted side effects vary quite a bit. Even without any treatment hot flashes and sweats ease off for most women with time, and then go away completely by themselves. Menopause is not an illness. It is normal for hormone levels to lessen off with age. These hormones do not need to be replaced.

Susanne

"I went to talks to learn more about how to go through the menopause without hormones. I was seriously determined to cope with the menopause naturally."

There are basically four options for handling hot flashes and sweats. Some women simply wait till the menopause passes. If that is not enough, you can consider changes in lifestyle, for example getting more exercise. Many women are interested in herbal options or other complementary or alternative remedies. For vaginal dryness, hormone-free lubricants and vaginal moisturisers are also options. Finally there is a range of hormone treatments.

Unfortunately, you cannot believe in all the promises that are made for different forms of advice and preparations. Some of these remedies do not seem to be as effective as is generally believed. Others have serious adverse effects that are sometimes under-estimated.

One reason for these misjudgments is that it is hard even for experts to keep fully up-to-date with all the research on the wide range of options. We have based our analysis on so-called systematic reviews, which helps us offer you as reliable an answer as possible to your questions.

There are many important questions in medicine where it is still not possible to give clear answers. We have chosen not to just speculate in those situations whether or not something is effective. But rather, we choose to be open in making clear that we do not know the answer. We would rather wait until new research evidence becomes available to give us a clearer picture of the benefits and safety of an option. That means that we will be updating this article when there is new evidence.

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